Sarah Allen's Blog, page 7

5 Places to Rake In Picture Book Ideas

1. Hidden History

Ever heard of Grace Hopper? Jean Jennings? I hadn't until very recently. Did you know they were instrumental in the development of the modern computer, coding and programming in particular? Our history is full of characters, women especially, who made insanely awesome contributions to our world that we don't know about. And picture book biographies are the bomb! Find the hidden stories and bring them to light. Keep asking questions and keep researching. Who was the first African-American woman in space? Who was the empress who smuggled silkworms out of China?

2. Old Diaries and Photo Albums

Your life has hidden gems too. Nobody grew up quite exactly the way you did. Maybe you were an only child who lived in a high-rise in New York. Maybe you grew up on a farm in Idaho. Maybe your parents immigrated to Canada from Syria when you were 4 years old. Maybe your brother was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Whatever it is, find the richness and uniqueness from your own life and bring it to the page. Best of all you get to call it "fiction" so nobody can make fun of you for that purple underwear you wore every day of third grade. We know that was you.

3. Dreams and Nightmares

I once had a dream about sword-fighting a wolf in my old school's gym. There's something ethereal, childlike and whimsical about dreams, even scary ones, that might be a perfect match for the ethereal, childlike, and whimsical experience we want readers to have in our picture books. Its a good idea to have a notebook with you wherever you go, but for sure keep one by your bed and jot down the craziness that happens inside your brain while you're asleep.

4. Mythology and Folklore

I recently watched Myths and Monsters on Netflix and it was really fun! I learned a lot about western European mythology that I hadn't known before. It's a classic but excellent place to go digging for story ideas, especially if you look through areas that maybe haven't really been explored before. I'd be excited by some picture books featuring Ghanaian folk tales. I'd spend my grubby, hard-earned dollars on picture books about heroes from Korean mythology.

5. Other Picture Books

There aren't really very many "shoulds" when it comes to writing. Yeah there are wise suggestions that most likely it's a good idea to follow, but really we are free to blaze our own path. But one really solid "should", at least in my mind, is the idea that if you want to write something, you've got to read that something. I mean come on. Freddie Mercury only happened because the Beatles happened. We've gotta know what conversation we're joining otherwise we might get stuck playing in our own mess, thinking we're creating something new. So if you wanna write picture books, then read picture books. Let the ideas you love inspire you. Let the pictures you love best spark something in your own mind. And you'll have ideas coming out your ears as thick as Grandpa Norbert's wiry grey ear-hair.

Write on, everyone!

Sarah Allen

5 Habits That Will Amp Up Every Scene You Write

1. Admit that you need amping. I think sometimes we writers--and by we I most definitely mean me--think of some of our most precious scenes like songs from an acoustic guitar. We imagine these scenes like intimate notes sung quietly, soothingly, so poignant and whatever because by now your reader has fallen asleep. These scenes are where most of those darlings reside, those darlings you must rip out by the roots and toss into a wood chipper, no matter the stream of tears coursing down your cheeks. Here's the thing. Am I saying we can never have acoustic scenes? Not remotely. In fact intimate, acoustic scenes are my absolute favorite thing (examples to follow), but you have to earn them. They have to be placed just right, so that when the audience reaches them they're on the edge of their seats, chills running down their spine as they wait for that next, solitary chord.

2. Place your calm in the eye of the tornado. You know that seen in the movie Babe, where farmer Hogget has walked his pig out onto the field of the sheepdog trials and everyone laughs and then Babe beats every record and herds the sheep into the correct pens and as Farmer Hoggett shuts the sheep pen, slowly, so slowly, every single person in the audience is dead silent and you hear that final metallic clink of the latch and then everyone bolts to their feet cheering their heads off and in the midst of the applause Farmer Hoggett looks down at Babe and says, "At'll do Pig. At'll do." You know that scene? Well the feeling of that scene is sort of what I mean when say put your calm in the eye of a tornado. That look on the Farmer's face when he looks down, the sun shining behind him, is an acoustic, intimate moment. But it means everything because of what's around it. Because we've gone through jeers and mockery and dog bites and cat scratches and a myriad other animal hijinks to get there. Even that silent latch click moment. We get a storm of jeering and harsh laughter before it and an eruption of validation and applause afterward. A perfect, tender chord will stand out all the more for surviving the chaos that surrounds it.
3. Stare Down the Gun Barrel. Here's a story I read recently in Benjamin Percy's Thrill Me (which you should all go read immediately why are you still here go read it). He tells the story of a professor in a creative writing program. A gruff, boot wearing, bearded professor from the south. One day in workshop one of the students turns in a story about a young man being robbed at gunpoint. The robbers have the gun directed at his head and the young man thinks through all the things he's going to miss out on if he dies. He'll miss making love to his girlfriend. He'll miss ever visiting Australia, and a bunch of other things. The student finishes this story, and gruff professor tells him to start reading it again. In the midst of this reading the professor, with no warning, pulls a gun from his coat and points it between the kids eyes. "What are you thinking about?" he says.
The story may or may not true, but there's no doubt it's worth remembering. Your knight racing toward his opponents javelin is not going to be pondering the various shades of blue in the princesses eyes. He's not going to be thinking much at all. He's going to be fighting an aching shoulder barely able to lift his weapon. He's going to be feeling the roll of his horses gait. His vision will become tunneled. So get that metaphorical gun pointed at your forehead and ask yourself, "What are you thinking about?"
4. Activate Your Setting. This is another idea that has its basis in Benjamin Percy's Thrill Me book. We writers can easily slip into the habit of allowing their setting to be still. Unmoving. Static. That in many ways is how we interact with the world, isn't it? It's not like our desk moves. But keeping our setting's static gets us low-amp level scenes. Say you've got two neighborhood kids daring for the first time to approach the local haunted house. As you show your reader this house for the first time, what does move? What motion is your tour guide? Is there a breeze rustling the shredded grey curtains? Is there a grey mouse moving across the floorboards from the orange-stained kitchen to the cobwebbed library and down the creaking basement steps? Follow the motion. Make your setting dynamic. Make your world dance.
5. Think Triangle Dialog. We often think of dialog as between two people, but your scenes will level up if you add a third element. The best dialog is more than just talking heads. A conversation may just have a player and their guitar, but when you add an amp it boosts the music to a new level. That amp, that third element in your triangle, is something like action or active setting. An argument between father and son in the kitchen is fine. An argument between father and son during the down-to-the-wire ninth inning of a National's game is much better. Or maybe you need to put the seen in the kitchen. If so, have the muffins in the oven burn. Give them a leaky pipe in the fridge, or a cut finger while they're trying to chop onions. Have your characters do something while they talk, and the dialog will amp up to a whole new level of strength.

Write on!
Sarah

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Developing a Thick Hide Against Rejection

I think it's tragic that this quote comes from Harper Lee--one can't avoid the implication that an insufficiently thick hide has something to do with why Ms. Lee never published a book after her seminal classic.

However, there are some good points here. As we develop our talent, we must be self-insulated enough not to get blown aside or knocked down by every wind of condescension, negativity, and rejection. Because when you choose to be a writer, this is an unavoidable part of that choice.

Everybody's got their own hide. Some are tanned and muscular. Some are bubbly and adorable. Some of us are blessed (cursed?) with hides flat enough to sketch on that can barely hold up a pair of jeans. Anyway, we all gotta develop our own hide, ya know? Each writer would do well to take that moment of self-analysis and figure out what it will take for you to keep chugging along like a freight train down the tracks of this writer life, no matter what nails and chinks and rocks and shrubbery that regular ol' life or malicious stinking trolls put in your way.

Chug on, little writer trains.

Sarah

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A Writers First Baby-steps To Plotting A Romance

Sometimes I think we go through paradigm shifts as writers. The writer we thought we were is suddenly no longer the writer we now know ourselves to be. It's as if we're a cute little Charmander with no conception of the power we will one day have as a mighty pen-wielding Charizard. We evolve. We level up.

This can take many forms. Maybe it's a form change. Maybe we've been trying to write short stories and we realize we're actually super great at poetry. Or we've been turning our nose up at epic fantasy but you've secretly got epic world building abilities and can write sorceresses like nobodies business. If you're a Geodude, own your Geodudeness. Don't be a Squirtle. Unless you're a Squirtle. Then be a Squirtle.

Of course figuring out what kind of pokewriter we really are takes a lot of time and experimentation. And maybe our true form is something like the head of a Pikachu with Rapidash's body and the soul of a Snorlax. (Behold the mighty Snorlax soul, hear her snor.) Point is, whatever monstrosity your writerly self evolves into, just be the best monstrosity you can be.

Which brings me to my latest personal writerly evolution.

In high school I had a very specific view of my writerly self. In class we were reading stuff like King Lear and Crime and Punishment and Cry, the Beloved Country, and A River Runs Through It. I wanted to BE Norman Maclean. For our big book projects one semester my teacher assigned me Moby Dick because he thought I could handle it. (I went to a small private school and had the same English teacher for all four years of high school, so suffice it to say, we all knew each other REALLY well.) Outside of class I read Charles Dickens and Jane Austen and Amy Tan.

Then I grew up.

In college I found a new part of myself. My college roommates introduced me to Star Trek and Avatar, the Last Airbender. I spent a year watching all eleven seasons of Frasier and ever chick flick I could find in the days before Netflix.

Most of all I saw all the glorious young adult and middle grade books I'd missed out on. I discovered Geraldine McCaughrean and Gary Schmidt, who both pretty much changed my life. I'd read and totally adored Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume as a kid and reading these books was almost like coming home again.

Point is, we all have different phases and interests that combine and mash together to form us into, well, us.  My particular mashup means I am absolutely rubbish at world building. Seriously, watching me try and world build is like watching an elephant seal flub across a beach. I've just never had the immersion in world building that it takes. (Basically my only child/teenhood exposure to sci fi and fantasy was Lord of the Rings and Galaxy Quest.) BUT, it does mean my writing is crisp and clean, and I'm prepped like a squirrel with walnuts when it comes to character development and a youthful, earnest voice.

So we play to our strengths. We wouldn't use a fire pokemon to fight a water pokemon, right? We would put a child molester in prison, not the Senate, right? Let's not be silly here.

In high school, if you told me I'd be working on a YA romance I'd have laughed in your face while hiding my copy of Twilight under my copy of Hamlet. But now I've realized how much certain romance stories have stuck with me, and meant to me. Maybe not Twilight, which was largely enjoyable, though not my kind of romance. But Jane Eyre is my kind. Eleanor & Park is my kind. I'm evolving, guys.

But with every evolution, new challenges arise. You don't grow a third leg without some stumbling, you know? So if you're in my situation and looking for crutches, check out Sarah Eden's blog and her incredibly useful 9 point story structure for plotting romances. I've never been steeped in the regency or traditional romance genre, and for those of you who live there, spread your wings and fly you beautiful pokewriters you. But even if you just have a small romantic subplot, Sarah Eden's powerpoint will save your tucus.

So go, writers, go.

Whatever you do, DON'T by "girl books" for your son this Christmas

We have a problem in this country. A stinking, reeking, pustulous problem that’s just beginning to burst the boil in politics, business, and Hollywood. Stories are coming to light, showing just how ubiquitous this problem is. Just how long it’s been going on, and been kept under wraps like toe fungus. The true victims of this problem are beginning to speak out and speak loud, despite being revictimized, despite not being believed.
So what is this problem?
We don’t have enough male characters in our media! Not enough strong male role models for our sons! The strong heroes we used to know have been made weak.
Just look what they’ve done with Iron Man. High-level anxiety and possible PTSD? Real men don’t have anxiety!
Now, some will have you believe that objectification of women is the problem. That female characters aren’t treated as real. This could clearly not be further from the truth. We’ve got Wonder Woman, so why do we need a Black Widow movie? We’ve got Anne Shirley and Buffy the Vampire slayer...why do we need more melodramatic, hormonal teenage girls?  See what I’m saying? Sure little girls dress up like Batman or Sherlock Holmes, but a boy version of Wonder Woman? A male Nancy Drew? Now let’s not be silly here.
One of these people who are suggesting that boys should read “girl books” is Newbery Award Winner Shannon Hale. Anybody else seeing a conflict of interest here? Her Newbery book is called “Princess Academy,” not “Prince Academy.” So maybe sometimes when she visits schools the administration doesn’t let the boys come to her speech. Why should boys know what it’s like to be a princess? Didn’t America make it quite clear in the last election how very, very, very desperate we are to avoid female leadership? I once heard Shannon tell a story about a little boy who waited until after everyone else had left, because he was too ashamed to ask for a copy of The Princess in Black in front of other boys. Darn right he should be wary! What are our sons learning these days? That girls can be just as tough as them?? Pshaw.
Sure, everybody on earth deserves respect. This is something we can all agree on. But shouldn’t women be respected as one would respect a statue? Quiet, benevolent, bestowing its grace and beauty on all who behold her? Statues have a place, as do all things of beauty.
But no, these whiners might say, women are just as varied and have just as many facets as men do. There’s just no way for men to know this for sure. I’ll even admit that it might be good if there was some way for men to understand the perspective of the other half of the human population, but there isn’t. That’s just something we have to live with. We must read from the best! What about the Hemingways and Fitzgeralds! What about the Clancys and Grishams! Look at the list of books your child is reading in school. Look at the latest bestseller the millionaire is reading in the plane seat next to you. Are most of the authors white men? Maybe that’s for a reason!
It’s like some people think reading female protagonists will increase a boys empathy and lead to a more aware, enlightened, and respectful adult. How ridiculous is that!

What The Antarctica Hole REALLY Is

So there’s a hole in Antarctica and nobody is sure why.
Well, not nobody.
I know.
A few scientists are pretty sure it has something to do with climate change, though they’re not quite sure what. In one interview, Well-Respected Scientist A said, “We’re pretty sure it has something to do with climate change, though we’re not quite sure what.” She also added, “Climate change is not a linear process,” which to me just sounds like excuses for not knowing what the icy heck is going on.
Then of course there are the conspiracy theorists who think it’s cthulhu, and this guy who thinks the hole is caused by, well…
But lucky for you, I’m here to set things straight.
The planet is a living, breathing organism. We all know this. The planet inhales carbon dioxide and breathes out oxygen. Sometimes living organisms ingest things that make them sick, which is when we get projectile vomit situations like Vesuvius and Pompeii. And then, after decades, centuries, and even millennia of digestion, sometimes a planet’s gotta poop.
Am I suggesting that the Antarctic hole is a giant sphincter, you ask? Well how else does an organism purge itself of all the filth we’re putting into it? Without cleansing itself we’re at risk of our planet getting a bad case of the hurricanes, if you get my drift. And we wouldn’t want that pockmarking the face of our beautiful home.
But the thing is, if this truly is a glacial opening of a planetary orifice, then the really important question isn’t what the Antarctic hole is, but what does Earth poop look like anyway?
Let me answer that by asking you a question.
What do gropers and blobfish have in common?

Just saying.

Nevuh Nev-Ah-Duh

When I lived in Nevada, it became pretty clear pretty fast that these are not judgemental people. They're more...leave me alone while I pull this lever people. Get out of my way on the belt loop because I'm not slowing down people. Smokes and cocktails in a whatever the blazes I feel like wearing people.

In other words, if you let them do them, they're happy to let you do you. They don't care.

Except for one thing.

Truly though, if you go to Nevada, you can get away with a lot. You can spend your entire savings on the slots and nobody will bat an eye. You can weigh 450 pounds and wear next to nothing to the theater and its just another night on the Strip. Heck, Nevada is a state where it's actually legal to vote Republican or Democrat or *gasp* even both. But there is one thing you can not, ever, EVER do in Nevada.

You can not say Nev-AHH-Duh.

It's Nev-EA-Duh, with the same bright A as Kansas and California. To a Nevadan, saying Nev-Ahh-Duh is like going to L.A. and saying CAUL-i-fornia, the same way you'd say cauliflower. (Which, in case you've forgotten in our drive-through culture, is a special type of cheese platter.) And, in a state with open-carry permits, this is not a mistake you want to make.

This is how that conversation usually goes:

Tourist: This place is great! How long have you lived in Nev-Ahh-Duh.
Nevadan: You're from the East coast aren't you.
Tourist: Yeah! How could you tell? We're from Boston and this is our first time acknowledging the existence of anything between the Mississippi River and Hollywood.
Nevadan: Here, come with me. There's something special I wanna show you in the basement of CircusCircus...

I'm not even kidding. Trumps mispronunciation when he visited Las Vegas is 99.9% of the reason he lost the state in the general election. (The list of top political issues Nevadans care about is 1. Correct pronunciation, 2. Illegal immigration, and 3. Free Public Parking.)

Just something to think about next time you're stopping through Vegas. Now excuse me, I have to go pack for my trip to New Yark.

From the Tweetdeck of Captain Blackbeard

Happy New Year to all, especially the ships I’ve plundered so hard they don’t know what to do! Love!
TODAY WE MAKE THE SEAS GREAT AGAIN -E.Teach
The Queen Anne’s Revenge has the best crew! I know crew. I have the best crew!
The papers keep rehashing our massacre five years ago--what about Anne Bonny’s missing loot! SAD!
East India Trading Co. invented rising ocean tides to make average man’s private fleets non-competitive. Disgusting!
Captain Kidd is, without question, the WORST EVER captain. I predict he will do something really stupid and then I’ll take over his ship!
I became captain all on my own, not with help from Ushkuiniks. Greatest pirate hunt! WRONG.
An ‘extremely credible source’ has signaled and told me Anne Bony isn’t actually a woman.
Anne Bonny is unattractive inside and out. I totally understand why her crew left her for Mary Read.
If Chelsea Bonny asked to hold helm for mommy while Anne gave ship away, fake news would say CHELSEA BONNY FOR CAPTAIN.
Queen Anne functioning perfectly. No matter what papers say. No time for fake news.
Eddie Teach Jr. did a great job. Transparent and innocent. Greatest pirate hunt in history! Sad!
Poorly rated Captain Kidd speaking badly of me. Then how come he’s always ogling my ships!!
My account so powerful I make my enemies quake and shiver in my tweet wake!
This is a photo of my luscious beard. It is the most luscious of all the beards. Look at it. Look.
Anne Bony says beard is fake--SO IS YOUR FACE! Beard is REAL. Fake news!
MY BEARD IS REAL. STOP SAYING MY BEARD ISN’T REAL.
MY BEARD IS REAL.
MY BEARD.
MMMMYYYYYYYY BEEEEEAAAAARDD
MEEEEEEEEEEEEE

5 Writing-Based Instagram Ideas for Writers

1. Its #Bookstagram, baby.

(Source: me blatant plug mwa ha ha)
#Bookstagram is a large and vibrant community of book-lovers on Instagram. We got into this inkslinging business because we love words, right? And now with modern social media, we can pretend to interact with others who love books as much as we do without actually having to speak to another human or put on pants! Whatever you're reading, take a fancy schmancy picture of it and share your thoughts! And don't be intimidated by the intensive setups and photo voodoo of some of the most popular bookstagrammers. Just do you! If you can work a fuzzy, feathery, scaly friend in there somewhere too, all the better! The point is to make social media non-stressful, fast, and easy, right? This is all in support of the real work, the way ants pick food for grasshoppers. (Because that's how nature works, right?)

(Hint: some of the top hashtags to use are #bookstagram [duh] #bookishfeatures #bookstagramfeatures and #books. Or try a #shelfie!)

2. Blackout Poetry

(Source: Austin Kleon)
So, I've never been a fan of when people post like screenshots of their poems from note apps and stuff. To me that looks as tacky as the underside of a 3rd grade desk, but hey, if you like it, more power to ya. However, I do think blackout poetry can look pretty freaking awesome when it's done well. Check out Austin Kleon's Instagram for some excellent examples. I downloaded the PicsArt app on my phone and that makes it pretty painless. Just snap a shot of a page of whatever you're reading and play around. Because social media should be your playground. Have fun and your audience will have fun. We know when you're having fun on that tire-swing and when you're not. We're watching.

(Hint: Try tagging your blackout poetry with #poetry #blackoutpoetry #makeblackoutpoetry #poem and #poetrycommunity)

3. Quoth the Instabard

(Source: Nerdist)
Step one. Pick a pretty sentence you read recently. Step two. Find a pretty picture of a sunset or a tree or a baboon butt that you took on your recent safari in Botswana. Step three. Use something like Canva or PicMonkey to overlay and mash them together like butter on toast. Step four. Pick a pretty filter and share that gorgeousness that's just so gorgeous we're all gonna cry till we puke. Step five. Climb that tree and dance with that baboon into that sunset, you inspiring butterfly of awesome you.

(Hint: For real, people love this stuff. Try using #quote #instaquote #writing and #writer)

4. It's a bird! It's a plane! It's WORDS WORDS WORDS!

(Source: Ellie Peek)
They're all around us, man, like Weeping Angels. And if you look close they stay still. Remember that church sign in your neighborhood with the hilarious misspelling? We want to see it too! (Heck, Lynn Truss made a whole career out of finding grammar mistakes). Burnt out bulbs or scrubbed off paint making a catchphrase much more interesting? Share! Quaint wooden plaques with words that make you smile? Come on friend, don't hog those smiles for yourself. That's just plain rude. Slap a pretty filter on that grin and blind us with the dazzle. Or just, ya know, look for pretty words. They're there.

5. The World is Your Writing Desk

(Source: Margot McGovern)
I once took a boomerang of the book I was reading while I was on a roller coaster. If you're a writer, you're a writer all the time. Yeah we're not working in a visual medium like paint or cartoons (although if you do that too, then post that shiz!) but we're still working, and we work everywhere. Show us your writing desk, and you don't even have to move the 37 Cheetoh's bags. Notebook on a beach? Instaperfect. Taking your typewriter on the A train? Well don't be a dippy ya hippie! If you want to use Instagram in your social media arsenal (and if you don't that's totally okay, pick the faceswords or tweetsabers, whatever works for you) then take advantage of the work you're already doing every day and share it. And really, that can go for any social media platform. Like Austin Kleon says, show your work! If you do, your tribe will find you. Arms outstretched, moaning braaiinzzzz over and over, we'll find you.

As with any writing/writelife advice, take what works for you and ditch the rest. Got other ideas for writerly Instagram posts? Share in comments!

Write on!

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Read More: From KidLit: How to Hook a Reader

Submission Opportunity: If you've thought about working on something historical check out this awesome fellowship opportunity with the American Antiquarian Society!

5 Different Ways To Think About "Write What You Know"

1. Write What You Want To Find Out.

If we all stuck with what we knew, our libraries would be full of pretty dull ink blots. J.K. Rowling would have never written about wizards living under staircases. J.R. Tolkien would have never given us Hobbitses, precious. Dan Wells would never have been able to write about a straight up psychopath. (At least, one would hope...). So really, the only thing stopping me from writing a story about an NBA star isn't that I'm a 5'4 white girl with the coordination of a banana, but that I... well, frankly, Kobe I don't give a flan. It's not what I want to find out about. If you're a 5'4 white girl with the coordination of a banana and for you the NBA is one of those brown paper packages favorite things type of things, then don't let anybody tell you you can't write about it. Write about what you care about. Write about what you're willing to dive into. What you're willing to research and put your blood, sweat, and other bodily fluids into.

2. Write What You DON'T Know.

This isn't actually contradictory to the traditional "write what you know" advice slung from every level of writer blogdom high and low. In fact they go hand in hand. Let me explain. No there is too much, let me some up. Buttercup is marry Humperdink in little less than...wait, where were we? Oh yeah. Ok, so there are lots of things you DO know lots about, right? Maybe you're the worlds foremost Han Dynasty expert. You've read all the books just because you're a Han nerd. (Lay off Leia, he's mine! Wait, wrong Han...) You can tell the difference between a Han pot and a Shin pot in thirty seconds flat. Maybe you know you want to write about the Han dynasty in your novel, but are having a hard time figuring out what approach to take. Well, think of it this way. What are the gaps in your otherwise extensive knowledge? Where's the loose tooth in your jaw? The gap in the fence that your creepy neighbors keep spying on you through? Cover that hole! Find that missing plank and form it into something beautiful. Write the thing you DON'T know.

3. Write What Puts You In The Freak Show.

You know you have a freak side. We all do. What I mean is, we all have something that puts us in the maligned 1%, and it ain't gotta be moulah. Maybe you grew up with a neighbor who cast spells on your house every night. Maybe you're dad works on a station in Antarctica and you've visited him. Maybe you were born with a rare disease that makes all your farts smell like grass clippings. I don't know. But you do. And maybe it's not something you normally think of as that strange, or it might take you a while to realize how unique it is. Take that part of you and run with it. Don't be shy. Fart those grass clippings. It might be hard. It might be vulnerable. But it sure could be the claw that pulls your little squeaky alien self out of the overcrowded prize box.

4. Write Where You Live.

So maybe this one hits home for me specifically because I live in a city that I don't think I've ever seen represented in fiction. Heck, my entire state isn't particularly hot on the Hollywood/Bestseller list. (What was the last show to be set in Utah...Sister Wives? Ugh). Ok, ok, obviously there are plenty of awesome and wonderful things set in Utah and in my little old Provo specifically, but there could definitely be more. And in all likelihood its the same for wherever you live. Everybody wants to set their stories in New York or Chicago, but you're not everybody, you're you you shimmering, powerful, rainbow-studded stallion you. Plus, writing where you live won't merely help you stand out, it'll also make it easy for you to write a totally authentic and refreshing story because it's a story from where you're standing. So go outside, breathe the Natchitoches or Pocatello or Karaganda air, or wherever it is you breathe where you live. (Hey, you might be a blobfish with good wifi. I don't know your life.) Then come back inside and breathe it onto the page, rich and pungent.

5. Write Who You Know.

Ok, so I don't mean copying wholesale your weird uncle who dyes his beard turquoise and whose footprints look like claws. (Ok, but if you for real have an uncle with claws for feet write that shiz.) I don't even necessarily mean digging out the strangest humans in your vicinity and morphing them so they fit on a page, although that's not necessarily a bad idea. In fact, sure, do that. But also don't forget that large groups also have personality. We call it culture. It's why you're called "Ma'am" in Texas and... something less nice in New York. Whoever you're surrounded by has already got their grubby, grimy, culture-filthy stench all over you, so you might as well take full advantage of it. The people in Baton Rouge are different from my people here in Utah Valley. They just are. And I want to see that. Zoom in and show us those differences. Get right up close enough to count the nose hairs. Okay maybe you don't need to be that close, but take the people around you and use them as inspiration. Tell your story and don't forget that they're the context.


More ideas for thinking about "Write What You Know"? Leave them in comments!

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Read More: From Kristen Lamb: What Truly Makes a Powerful Female Character
Submission Opportunity: Parabola is accepting Non-Fiction articles.